When Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett announced an attention-grabbing plan to get every Marion County student into post-secondary education at his State of the City address in April, he shared a broad vision with few specifics.

Now, his task force is starting to narrow the focus.

"They're excited," said Ahmed Young, from the mayor's office of education innovation and chair of the task force. "People want to be engaged; they want to learn more."

The task force of nearly two dozen leaders from education, business and workforce development met for the first time Monday, starting the hard work of outlining the framework of how an "Indianapolis Promise" could look and whom it would help.

The group is just getting started, but so far discussions seem to be pointing toward a program targeting low-income students that first links them with other support services, then fills in the gaps — financially and otherwise — to help them complete college.

The program likely would help them get two- or four-year degrees from Ivy Tech Community College or IUPUI, Marion County's two public institutions.

"I think you would be looking at the Indianapolis Promise as being kind of a 'last dollar in' approach, rather than trying to comprehensively fund post-secondary education as a city on our own," Hogsett said.

Right now, the task force is looking at a program that would provide that "last dollar" support for every Marion County student who graduates high school and completes the 21st Century Scholars program. It's too soon, they say, to know what kind of investment that would take.

Marie Mackintosh, COO of EmployIndy, said there is also interest in addressing support services that go beyond paying for tuition, housing and textbooks. Other barriers, like transportation or lack of awareness, must be addressed as well.

Mackintosh said a lot of groups represented on the task force, like EmployIndy, are already working in this space, but the Indianapolis Promise can bring them together to see what's still missing and then plug those holes.

It's about "connecting all the dots," she said.

It's clear now that 21st Century Scholars will be a big dot in that matrix and a key focus in the task force's effort is to increase participation in existing programs that already offer services to students.

"It starts with a strong program that's been around for many years," said Ahmed Young, from the mayor's office of education innovation. "How do we ultimately influence more of our students to take advantage of it?"

21st Century Scholars enrolls low-income students in middle school, then works with them throughout high school to complete activities that connect them to programs and resources to help them prepare for college. Students who complete the activities and meet the criteria, like maintaining a certain GPA, then receive a scholarship for up to four years of paid tuition at an eligible Indiana college or university upon graduation from high school.

Theoretically, the Indianapolis Promise could come in with additional scholarship funds to help cover things that 21st Century Scholars doesn't, like room and board and textbooks.

Right now, about one-third of eligible students in Marion County are actually completing the program.

In the class of 2017, about 45 percent of the 6,760 eligible students enrolled in the program by the start of high school. Of those who enrolled, about 62 percent completed all of the high school requirements — about 2,100 Marion County students out of more than 10,000 in the same grade.

Of course, many of those students are finding their way into post-secondary education by other means. Not enough of them, though, Hogsett said.

He continues to point to studies showing that nearly two-thirds of jobs will require some post-secondary education by 2020, but only 42 percent of Indiana's workers have those credentials.

Similar programs in places like Kalamazoo, Mich., Pittsburgh and Tennessee have seen increased enrollment in post-secondary education programs. Shelby County, Ind., was the first in the state to offer free college tuition to qualifying high school graduates, paying for up to two years of tuition at Ivy Tech Community College.

The Indianapolis Promise task force will meet monthly and plans to present recommendations to Hogsett by December, with a goal to have the first cohort of students by early 2019.